NHTSA estimates that 11,889 lives were saved in the year 2000 by the use of safety belts.

Every parent's worst nightmare is when a highway trooper comes pulling up in the front yard.

It doesn't matter what time, day, week, month or year - for the moment becomes frozen. It is never forgotten. When he comes to tell you, a part of you dies. Although not the first to know, you will always be the last to understand. Nothing about the crash will ever make sense, except maybe the reason your earlier attempts to cell phone failed.

The tenth IEEE Motor Vehicle Event Data Recorder meeting was conducted at Ramtron Corporation in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on February 10-11, 2003.¹ There were fifty-two individual in attendance. There were two special presentations. Dearborn International provided an overview of in-vehicle networks and embedded systems. Lt. Colonel Scott Henderson, Commanding Officer of the United States Air Force (USAF) 2ND Space Operations Squadron presented an overview of the Global Positioning System (GPS).

A letter written on February 10, 2003 by the DaimlerChrysler Corporation (DCX) representative addressing the IEEE/SAE relationship was received on February 11, 2003.² She asked to post it to the public record and in the final minutes of the meeting. The letter explained her position toward the voluntary standards initiative for EDRs. It is provided verbatim as follows:

Dear P1616 Members,

EDRs raise a number of sensitive issues related to our sense of guilt and innocence, and truth and justice, which - as we have amply proven over the past year - are almost impossible to ignore. For this reason, virtually every person exposed to the issue has an opinion (sometimes quite strong) on the matter, whether or not they understand it in all the particulars. Discussion of EDR standardization therefore tends to stir up questions of appropriate policy over which rational minds may - and inevitably do - disagree. The only way to avoid this pitfall when writing an otherwise-technical standard is to construct a strict barrier between those aspects of standardization that do not involve setting policy, and those that do. I believe the current scope of P1616 accomplishes this goal, and I'll go out on a limb and say that those who voted in favor of it agree, and approved it for this reason.

What the current scope and purpose of P1616 says, in effect, is: We will not in this standard prescribe what data should be recorded, or how to record it, because we recognize that choosing a minimum data set and associated "required" recording parameters would set a policy for a certain type of EDR. This would not only exclude other types of possible EDRs, but it would impose hardware and development costs and burdens on vehicle manufacturers, for which consumers might not be willing to pay. On the contrary, some consumers are quite vocal in their opposition to having any type of EDR installed on their vehicle, let alone one designed by business interests perceived to be contrary to those of consumers. Therefore, the only fair way to set EDR policy is for the issue to be taken up in a political forum, rather than a technical forum. In a political forum, consumer qua voter interests are (in some fashion, anyway) represented in the decision-making process, and policy concerns can be raised, vetted and decided according to a process we all more or less endorse as "fair."

However, for all of the many reasons we have discussed, debated, and otherwise squabbled over, the reigning political authorities (the legislatures and the regulatory agencies) have been reticent to impose an EDR policy under the current circumstances. I personally believe that their reticence to act so far is a wise reaction to the fact that there is insufficient public consensus on this issue at this time. I believe that policy makers in general recognize that an effort to develop a public policy on EDRs in the current climate will quickly degenerate into a firestorm of controversy, from which no good policy can be expected to result. In short, I believe (and I'm not alone) that as a society we are better off waiting some indefinite period of time while EDRs are implemented voluntarily, thus allowing more of a public consensus about the value of EDR data to evolve on the basis of real-world experience, including the development of legal remedies and judicial precedence to deal with the thornier aspects of blame and liability.

Therefore, contrary to what some of you may have unfortunately come to believe on the basis of some ill-worded exchanges during these meetings (for which I accept partial blame - sorry!), please understand that I am not personally or professionally opposed to EDRs or to the standardization of EDRs. On the contrary, I am a strong proponent of carrying out the current scope and purpose (at least for light vehicles), which is why I have also been a proponent of taking up this aspect of EDR standardization under SAE. I think a strong business case can be made that this standard belongs in SAE. SAE is the technical liaison to ISO for automotive standards, and the official technical organization for issuing U.S. automotive standards. While EDRs do encompass electronic aspects and protocols, they are nevertheless inextricably linked to motor vehicles, components and systems, and have 10 purpose or function independent of a motor vehicle. Moreover, SAE already has multiple standards and protocols established and under development that :an be readily incorporated or adapted to EDR use. [he expertise behind these existing and developing standards resides in SAE, rather than in IEEE, to which his expertise is, by virtue of subject matter, less accessible. (For similar reasons, SAE would be ill-advised to undertake the standardization of a hardware protocol br computer chips.) Finally, IEEE as an institution appears to have a much higher tolerance for committee dysfunction and instability than I have seen at SAE, which I believe would have dealt with the underlying problems of PI616 before things degenerated to this point.

Having said all that, however, I will not stand in the way of an intelligent and workable solution for establishing a professional relationship between P1616 and he newly-constituted SAE activity. If a joint standard, or mutually-compatible standards, can be developed /without undue delay and further frustration, I will work as hard as anyone (with the possible exception of Htideki Hada, who is a hard act to follow) to make things work. However, I will not endorse the setting of in EDR policy under the auspices of this - or any other - technical standards setting body, and I am not confused about where that line is drawn.

Finally, to the person who asked why I (or anyone else) should care what IEEE does by way of setting a voluntary standard - particularly if I plan to turn my attention to SAE - please understand that technical standards in the automotive industry generally establish the state-of-the-art for the purposes of determining liability under tort. Therefore, vehicle manufacturers who deviate from them without technical justification for doing so, do so at their peril. Since there is no technical justification for deviating from a policy proclamation, it is important that polices not be written into technical standards, which otherwise impose unwarranted risks for manufacturers who choose not to follow them. (Note that this is not an opinion I hold just because I work for DaimlerChrysler, either, but because I understand the implications of misapplied policies and judge them to be unreasonable. Therefore, it is consistent with a professional ethic, and appropriate for a member of a professional society to act on this opinion in the course of developing technical standards.)

I hope this letter clarifies apparent misunderstanding. Sorry for the 'ruffled feathers.' Thanks for listening.

Best regards, Barbara Wendling